Haven't updated the blog in a while.
Many a good witness encounter has been had lately.
Last Saturday evening Rick Harman and I went to Lower Greenville. I obtained some new tracts recently for our witnessing crew and was eager to use them. I ordered them from the following website --> http://www.customtractsource.com. (I found this website via Mark Cahill's website. http://www.markcahill.org. ) These are a good alternative to living waters gospel tracts, they're very creative good quality tracts with a sound gospel message. (Covering law and grace)
A friend of mine who recently moved near Lower Greenville offered to let us park at their house whenever we come to witness. This friend lives several blocks from Lower Greenville. This was nice because I tracted most of the cars parked in the neighborhood as we made the walk into the heart of Lower Greenville. There's a tract that looks just like a parking ticket I was using which works great for putting on cars. (http://www.customtractsource.com/Parking-Ticket_p_0-68.html).
Lower Greenville was an absolute zoo on this particular night. The Texas OU game had taken place ealier in the day and the revelers were saturating the streets and the clubs.
Once we got into Lower Greenville, we struck up a conversation with a group of three guys. They were college students attending SMU. I gave each of them a tract (http://www.customtractsource.com/What-If-Im-Pretending_p_0-152.html). One of the three had a Christian background. He was very open and stayed and talked with us at length, even after his other friends left. He was very honest and told us that he was enamored with the pleasures of the world and really felt like he was falling away from his Christian upbringing. God must have been bringing conviction on him, because although his other friends left pretty quickly when they found out we were Christians and that we were out witnessing, he hardly noticed when they left and was very drawn to our conversation. One of the things that he kept saying was that we needed to come to his Campus (SMU) and witness to people there. I told him that we could and we might, but if he really cared about the others on his campus, then HE ought to repent, get back on track with God, and then reach out to those on his campus himself. Jesus never stated that we lack a harvest because the "right" laborers aren't present in a particular place. There is a potential harvest everywhere, but where are the laborers to reap that harvest?
We had a VERY good conversation, because he was so OPEN and God had obviously already been working on his heart and doing a lot of humbling. When I spoke to the nature of the Ten Commandments and talked about how we use them to show people what sin is, he listened very intently and earnestly. I am always encouraged when people's eyes are locked on every word you are saying . I'm convinced that this is an outward indicator that the Holy Spirit is doing something inwardly, convicting the person of sin righteousness and judgement (John 16:8). In those kind of situations I also wonder who is praying, or has been praying for this person, because it's certainly not due to any of my own wisdom or eloquence in speaking that people are impacted in such a manner and so focused on what you're saying and the scriptures that you're sharing. After much encouragement and exhortation for him to act on what we had talked about, we prayed together and then Rick and I headed back to my car. One the way back we were able to tract all the cars on the OTHER side of the street with the parking ticket tract! (http://www.customtractsource.com/Parking-Ticket_p_0-68.htm)
As always, pray that the seeds we planted will bear fruit to the glory of God!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friends don't let freinds go to hell
Another interesting night of witnessing was had on Saturday night.
We had 5 people on the team night. Mark Maclean, Emmanuel Zeli, Rick Harman, Sarah Graham, and myself.
I went with Rick and Sarah. We ended up talking to a guy named Jeremy the entire time. Jeremy had been raised baptist. Jeremy was a church goer. Jeremy was disillusioned by the divisions he saw between different denominations. The contrasting ideas of pre-destination and free will were a stumbling block for Jeremy.
Jeremy had friends who were non-Christians. He thought the best way to reach them was to live one's life as a Christian and eventually people would want to know why you are different and why they needed God.
Although that sounds nice in theory, I've never heard a good biblical argument to justify that approach to the EXCLUSION of a verbal proclamation of the gospel. I incessantly hear this line when witnessing to people who profess to be a Christians but show an implicit disdain for the spoken gospel, which they will try to equate with "shoving religion down someone's throat."
What Jeremy speaks of is commonly (and I would say erroneously) called "friendship evangelism." The problem is the way the Bible defines "friendship evangelism" is not the way that people often definie it.
I tend to agree with Tony Minao from http://thelawmanchronicles.blogspot.com . The gist of his argument put plainly: "Friends don't let firends go to hell". I quot a portion of his post below:
Regardless of where Jeremy Stands with the Lord, we were able to challenge and exhort him that if he is a true Christian we will fully embrace God's word as the authority that trumps all the opinions of men and live his life accordingly. I also gave him a CD with the message "Hell's best kept secret" (http://www.wayofthemaster.com/mp3/tape01.m3u) and "What does od Owe you" ( http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com/podcast/media/2007-05-07_01_what_does_god_owe_you__(11-05-06).mp3) and encouraged him to listen to it, whcih he said he would.
We had 5 people on the team night. Mark Maclean, Emmanuel Zeli, Rick Harman, Sarah Graham, and myself.
I went with Rick and Sarah. We ended up talking to a guy named Jeremy the entire time. Jeremy had been raised baptist. Jeremy was a church goer. Jeremy was disillusioned by the divisions he saw between different denominations. The contrasting ideas of pre-destination and free will were a stumbling block for Jeremy.
Jeremy had friends who were non-Christians. He thought the best way to reach them was to live one's life as a Christian and eventually people would want to know why you are different and why they needed God.
Although that sounds nice in theory, I've never heard a good biblical argument to justify that approach to the EXCLUSION of a verbal proclamation of the gospel. I incessantly hear this line when witnessing to people who profess to be a Christians but show an implicit disdain for the spoken gospel, which they will try to equate with "shoving religion down someone's throat."
What Jeremy speaks of is commonly (and I would say erroneously) called "friendship evangelism." The problem is the way the Bible defines "friendship evangelism" is not the way that people often definie it.
I tend to agree with Tony Minao from http://thelawmanchronicles.blogspot.com . The gist of his argument put plainly: "Friends don't let firends go to hell". I quot a portion of his post below:
Let me stated it plainly. Those who read this blog and who practice what is commonly referred to as "friendship evangelism" (which, according to how it is most commonly practiced is a contradiction of terms), and who find it unnecessary and even offensive to talk to lost people about God's wrath, judgment and the reality of hell are neither a friend nor an evangelist to sinners bound for the very place about which they are afraid to speak. If this is you, then you are merely one among the throng of professing Christians who, in the end, care more about what the lost think of you than where the lost will spend eternity. In the end, you care more about the personal benefits you derive from your friendship with the lost than you do about your lost friend. In the end, friendship evangelism is about you and not your lost friend.The rest of the post, from which the above is quoted, is also worth the read. http://thelawmanchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/06/talk-about-hell-its-loving-thing-to-do.html
Think about it, please.
Regardless of where Jeremy Stands with the Lord, we were able to challenge and exhort him that if he is a true Christian we will fully embrace God's word as the authority that trumps all the opinions of men and live his life accordingly. I also gave him a CD with the message "Hell's best kept secret" (http://www.wayofthemaster.com/mp3/tape01.m3u) and "What does od Owe you" ( http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com/podcast/media/2007-05-07_01_what_does_god_owe_you__(11-05-06).mp3) and encouraged him to listen to it, whcih he said he would.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Curtis and Kevaugn
It had been a while since we've gone witnessing in Deep Ellum, so Saturday night Rick Harman, Mark Maclean, Emmanuel Zeli and I made a trip down there. We met at the Maclean's house, and Sarah Graham, who is in the bible study that both Luke Maclean and I are a part of came and prayed with us (along with Mr. Maclean) before we left.
I paired up with Rick, and Mark paired up with Emmanuel. I should mention that Emmanuel will be leaving in a few short weeks with his family as they return to the Ivory Coast in Africa( where they are originally from.) His family came over here about 7 years ago and his dad just completed some sort of pastorate degree, so they are going back to their country. I'm really going to miss him when he's gone, I've gotten to know him through working with the youth group that I work with, and recently through his coming with us to Deep Ellum. It's going to be hard on him to leave, because he's leaving just as his Senior year in High School is beginning.
The first group that Rick and I engaged was a group of about 5 or 6 people. We started through the good person test, but got sidetracked on issues of the reliability of the scriptures. They had probably seen the Da Vinci code ( a total joke in itself) and so they had similar arguments against the bible, such as Jesus' supposed relationship with Mary Magdalene,as well as the typical "the bible has been corrupted and changed." My attempts to reason with them weren't very well received, a rational discussion certianly didn't ensue. Although their primary arguments were weak, they really only seemed interested in mocking the bible. I think we probably would have kept two of the guys in the group engaged, however the girls that were with them that weren't already engaged in the conversation, (except to occasionally mock) essentially convinced them to go and pulled them out of what could have eventually been a profitble time of contending for the faith.
Later on we ran into a guy named Kevaugn. I gave him the "Are you a good person" tract. (http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=256)He professed to be a Christian after I told him what the tract was, and what followed afterwards was a long and interesting conversation. He was one of those people whom it was difficult to discern where he really was at spiritually. There were several reasons for this. He freely spoke about God's influence on his life, and he knew a good number of scriptures. He said God always came through for him when people set traps for him, trying to make him stumble. I started having questions in my mind about what he really beleived when he started having underlying tones of a prosperity type message in what he was saying. There was an implicit message he seemed to be communicating that if a Christian suffers, or is slandered, etc, that this is a bad thing and something God wouldn't purposefully allow in someone's live. One question that always reveals a lot about what a "professing" christian believes about God, (and I ask this question a lot of those who say they are christians) is the question, "What would you tell someone who doesn't see a need for God's forgiveness?". I asked Kevaugn this question. His answer had little or no mention of sin, God's righteousness, judgement day, the cross, repentance or hell, so we brought up the 10 commandments, explaining that God gave us his law so that we could see ourselves and our sin in truth. I'm not sure how much this sank in with Kevaugn, but around that point in the conversation, I got side tracked by a homeless person (Perhaps the real reason we where there.) who was walking by asking for money. His name was Curtis.
I paired up with Rick, and Mark paired up with Emmanuel. I should mention that Emmanuel will be leaving in a few short weeks with his family as they return to the Ivory Coast in Africa( where they are originally from.) His family came over here about 7 years ago and his dad just completed some sort of pastorate degree, so they are going back to their country. I'm really going to miss him when he's gone, I've gotten to know him through working with the youth group that I work with, and recently through his coming with us to Deep Ellum. It's going to be hard on him to leave, because he's leaving just as his Senior year in High School is beginning.
The first group that Rick and I engaged was a group of about 5 or 6 people. We started through the good person test, but got sidetracked on issues of the reliability of the scriptures. They had probably seen the Da Vinci code ( a total joke in itself) and so they had similar arguments against the bible, such as Jesus' supposed relationship with Mary Magdalene,as well as the typical "the bible has been corrupted and changed." My attempts to reason with them weren't very well received, a rational discussion certianly didn't ensue. Although their primary arguments were weak, they really only seemed interested in mocking the bible. I think we probably would have kept two of the guys in the group engaged, however the girls that were with them that weren't already engaged in the conversation, (except to occasionally mock) essentially convinced them to go and pulled them out of what could have eventually been a profitble time of contending for the faith.
Later on we ran into a guy named Kevaugn. I gave him the "Are you a good person" tract. (http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=256)He professed to be a Christian after I told him what the tract was, and what followed afterwards was a long and interesting conversation. He was one of those people whom it was difficult to discern where he really was at spiritually. There were several reasons for this. He freely spoke about God's influence on his life, and he knew a good number of scriptures. He said God always came through for him when people set traps for him, trying to make him stumble. I started having questions in my mind about what he really beleived when he started having underlying tones of a prosperity type message in what he was saying. There was an implicit message he seemed to be communicating that if a Christian suffers, or is slandered, etc, that this is a bad thing and something God wouldn't purposefully allow in someone's live. One question that always reveals a lot about what a "professing" christian believes about God, (and I ask this question a lot of those who say they are christians) is the question, "What would you tell someone who doesn't see a need for God's forgiveness?". I asked Kevaugn this question. His answer had little or no mention of sin, God's righteousness, judgement day, the cross, repentance or hell, so we brought up the 10 commandments, explaining that God gave us his law so that we could see ourselves and our sin in truth. I'm not sure how much this sank in with Kevaugn, but around that point in the conversation, I got side tracked by a homeless person (Perhaps the real reason we where there.) who was walking by asking for money. His name was Curtis.
Rick and Kevaugn
As I usually do with Homeless people who ask me for money, I asked him how he ended up in the situation that he was currently in. He said that he had recently got out of the "corrections facility". When I asked him what had put him in the correction facility, he mentioned some business dealing that I didn't understand, but apparently it had been illegal. I asked him whether he had family (he did, but they were all grown, and he was divorced from his wife). I then told him that we were Christians, and explained why were out here (to witness, and minister to people). I asked him if he thought he was a good person, and he said he was for the most part, so I went through the good person test with him. (http://www.goodpersontest.com/) After my presentation of 3 of the commandments, and he openly admitting he would be guitly before God if judged by the 10 commandments, he was very uncomfortale with the conversation and it was pretty obvious that he wanted to leave. He said one of the reasons he was going to leave was that I was making him feel guilty. I asked him if rather it was his conscience that was bringing up the guilt, and stated that there was nothing wrong with someone FEELING guilty before God if they ARE guilty before God. As true Christians, we know the biblical precedent is that guilt is revelaed in us through the application of God's law to our consicence, but the law will naturally drive us to the gospel and to Christ. (Galations 3:24). Also Romans 3:19 tells us that one of the functions of God's law is to demonstrate the reality that the entire world IS guilty before God. It should be no surprise then that someone who has sinned agains the creator of the universe would feel guitly when presented with the law of God. Several times Curtis indicated that he was going to leave, saying he just wanted to get a little money so he could buy something to eat and he didn't need this right now. At one point I really did think he was going to leave, but I pleaded with him not to. I told him it would be awfully sad if he left under the condemnation of the law, because I hadn't yet had the chance to share with the gospel or the good news with him. At this point he was not justifying himself, so I was convinced that he had been humbled enough by the law that he was ready for the gospel. I should also mention that during the conversation Curtis professed to be a Christian, but initially he was very uncomfortable talking about the things of God. When I finally did share the good news with him, it made a huge impact on him. The message of Christ's atoning sacrifice by taking his punishment for him seemed to strike a chord with Curtis. There was finally impact, I could see it in his eyes. I pleaded with him to repent and get right with God today, declaring that today is the day of salvation, I told him that Jesus said a man must be born again in order to see the kingdom of heaven. I asked him if I could prayer for him, and he willingly obliged. I spent several minutes in prayer asking that God would reveal himself to Curtis, and after praying gave him some money to be able to get some food. After I had finnished praying for him, he turned to me, on the verge of having tears in his eyes, and gave me a hug, and told me repeatedly "Thank you. " I could tell he wasn't just thankful for the money, but had clearly been impacted by my persistence in sharing Word of God with him. I was very encouraged.
After Curtis left I rejoined the conversation that Rick was having with Kevaugn. After about 5 minutes, we realized it was time to go meet Mark and Emmanuel back at the car. Kevaugn didn't really have anywhere he needed to go so he said he would walk back with us.
Earlier I had mentioned that when we first started talking to Kevaugn it was difficult discerning where he was at spiritually. On the walk back to the car he was talking about things that were very strange and off the wall. He claimed that he had been some sort of high profile sporting scout/recruiter, and that he had made some really major contracts, and because there was such a potential for so much money, that the goverment kept tabs on him, and then he pointed up to the sky and started talking about how they had satellites tracking him and listening to every word he said. My reaction to this was along the lines of "Oh give me a break, you're not serious are you" because up to that point he seemed to be quite articulate and with it mentally. However my skepticism didn't phase him, he kept on going talking about satellites and the goverment being interested him, as though he he really believed it. I figured I would play along, so I started sharing the law and the gospel with the "people who were listening via the satellites" so that Kevaugn would have another chance to hear it :). When we got back to the car, I gave him a little information card about my church ((http://www.rockharvest.org/ ), my cellphone number, and a CD with the following two messages on it, (which he said he would listen to ):
1. What does God owe you? http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com/podcast/media/2007-05-07_01_what_does_god_owe_you__(11-05-06).mp3
2. Hell's Best Kep Secret
http://www.wayofthemaster.com/mp3/tape01.m3u
As we said goodbye he seemed to be more serious and had stopped talking about his "out there" theories that the goverment was watching him. I thought was a good sign. I still don't know what his deal was. Most of the conversation had been rational and logical, up until he had started going off on some very strange tangents. Pray for Kevaugn.
After Curtis left I rejoined the conversation that Rick was having with Kevaugn. After about 5 minutes, we realized it was time to go meet Mark and Emmanuel back at the car. Kevaugn didn't really have anywhere he needed to go so he said he would walk back with us.
Earlier I had mentioned that when we first started talking to Kevaugn it was difficult discerning where he was at spiritually. On the walk back to the car he was talking about things that were very strange and off the wall. He claimed that he had been some sort of high profile sporting scout/recruiter, and that he had made some really major contracts, and because there was such a potential for so much money, that the goverment kept tabs on him, and then he pointed up to the sky and started talking about how they had satellites tracking him and listening to every word he said. My reaction to this was along the lines of "Oh give me a break, you're not serious are you" because up to that point he seemed to be quite articulate and with it mentally. However my skepticism didn't phase him, he kept on going talking about satellites and the goverment being interested him, as though he he really believed it. I figured I would play along, so I started sharing the law and the gospel with the "people who were listening via the satellites" so that Kevaugn would have another chance to hear it :). When we got back to the car, I gave him a little information card about my church ((http://www.rockharvest.org/ ), my cellphone number, and a CD with the following two messages on it, (which he said he would listen to ):
1. What does God owe you? http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com/podcast/media/2007-05-07_01_what_does_god_owe_you__(11-05-06).mp3
2. Hell's Best Kep Secret
http://www.wayofthemaster.com/mp3/tape01.m3u
As we said goodbye he seemed to be more serious and had stopped talking about his "out there" theories that the goverment was watching him. I thought was a good sign. I still don't know what his deal was. Most of the conversation had been rational and logical, up until he had started going off on some very strange tangents. Pray for Kevaugn.
Kevaugn and I
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Foolishness and Witnessing
It was a small group last night, partly because we were helping our friend Anne move from her house into an apartment earlier in the evening and I didn't have time to coordinate a bigger group.
Luke Maclean, Rick Harman and I went to "Uptown Village" in Cedar Hill last night to do some witnessing. Uptown Village is a fairly new outdoor Mall and none of us had really been there yet so we decided to give it a try. Recently we've been looking for some place where we can go regularly to witness that isn't as far away as the downtown areas of Deep Ellum or Lower Greenville. I still want to go to the downtown areas, but just not every week.
Mark didn't come tonight, but he has suggested paying for a Daily pass on the Local Dallas Transit train/bus system and riding it for a few hours and sharing the gospel with the people who are in Transit. He and Luke have been taking the Transit to get to the YMCA where they are both working this summer (because it saves them money in Gas, and because as Luke said "We can Witness along the way" :) ) We'll probably try doing that soon as we explore different Streetlight ministries fishing trip possibilities.
We arrived at the Mall and scoped it out by driving around the perimiter (however we didn't drive around 7 times, and we didn't shout at the end :)). There weren't all that many people walking or milling around since it was past 10 PM. Barnes and Nobles and a couple of the restaurants were still open so we parked and headed to Barnes and Nobles. As soon as we got in the store, Luke seemed to dissapear on some sort of beeline towards the back of the store. I wasn't sure where he went, but Rick and I began to browse the store. A teenager with an interesting T-Shirt was walking by, and I decided wanted to ask him about his shirt. His shirt had a graphic image of the Mount Rushmore monument, but instead of the faces of the presidents, there were skulls. Rick hadn't seen the shirt or the guy, so I was trying to describe what the shirt was like, but I couldn't remember what the Monument was called. Rick couldn't either. There was a guy and a girl (late 20's, early 30's) just across from us so I leaned over and asked them "What's the name of the monument with the heads of the four presidents? We're trying to recall it but can't remember it. " They knew what we were talking about right away, and said "Mt. Rushmore!" Bingo! We were now in a conversation with the two of them. (The Guy with the T-shirt ended up going to the checkoutline anyway!) Perhaps sometimes God allows forgetfulness as a way to nudge us into initiating conversations with other people. :)
I always find that the most challenging part of any witnessing encounter has always been the transition to the spiritual and the things of God. I imagine that Satan could care less if we're great conversationalists, because that serves as no threat to him, but when we determine to bring up the things of God, he goes on overdrive on the counter attack, because the very message of the gospel is a threat to him. I think this a very real part of what happened last night.
Amy and Matt were more than happy to talk to us. They mentioned near the end of our conversation that they often go to places like Barnes and Nobles, etc , but they had NEVER
just stopped and chatted with strangers like this before, and Amy thought it was very cool that tonight had been different.
Back to my original thought. Satan doesn't want the things of God brought up, he doesn't want to you to hold up the mirror of the Law of God, he doesn't want Christ preached. So he brings his influence through discourgaement, fear,lack of boldness, etc. I felt like we breached on the things of God several times, but we didn't get much farther than a breach. I have this image in my mind as I'm writing that the Gospel is like a huge resivoir of water, stored up behind a Dam. When the Dam is released, the full power of that water can be unleashed. While we had our conversation, there were several opportunities where the floodgates were about to be opened, but instead we only managed to breach some water over the dam via the dams spillway. A little breach might draw someone's interest, but it doesn't unleash the stored power of all the water behind that Dam to completely wash over the person you're talking to. With Amy and Matt, this sort of "spillway" breach happened several times. They were both schooled in Philosphy, as it had been a significant part of both of their college experience, so I had asked who they thought was the greatest philospher of all time. Matt said Plato. After Matt explained why he thought why, Amy asked me and who I thought was the greatest Philospher. I meant to come right out and say Jesus Christ (John 7:46 They Answered "Never did any man speak like this man) but I hesitated, and the topic of conversation went elsewhere. An example of another breach: Somehow we had gotten on the topic of tyranny and I had asked Matt if he thought governmental tyranny was present in the United States. He said in many respects it was, and made the point that our society was in the process of transitioning from the "Rule of Law" to the "Rule of Man". This was another perfect opportunity for me to bring up the Law of God, and talk about how the deeper problem affecting humanity was not the exteranl governance of men, but was that the law of God needed to rule in men's hearts, and this could come only through what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Again I hesitated. (Argg!). A third breach example was when I asked the question what they thought was out there when we die. Amy really liked this question (and so did Matt) but didn't elaborate because she said it wasn't something that she could discuss in 5 minutes because it needed hours. She said if I gave her my e-mail address, that we could continue a discussion via e-mail. (So we did exchange e-mail addresses later). So instead of responding to that with something like "Well I think this is such an important topic to discuss, because none of us know the day that we will die. Why don't we take you guys out to I-HOP so we can discuss this further?" I just said ok, why don't we exchange e-mail addresses. " :(
So I don't want to make it sound like the conversation wasn't really awesome , because it was, and I don't want to make it sound it won't be used by God, because I know he blesses our efforts to be faithful, even if we feel like we missed an opportunity to really preach the entirety of the gospel. It's my own self reflection on why I wasn't bolder in pursuing to the full extent certain subjects we talked about which were natural and obvious springboards to the gospel. After all on the Drive down to the mall, I was the one who had brought up the verse "The Righteous are as Bold as a Lion" ! (Proverbs 28:1). So when I got home last night I did a search of my bible for the term "philosphy". I wanted to see what the Bible said about Philosphy, becuase our conversation centered a lot on the subject of philosophy. I think in doing this I kind of found my answer. (And knowing a lot more about Philosophy is not he correct Philosphy)
Here's the verse, with quite a bit of context: (1 Corinthians
Luke Maclean, Rick Harman and I went to "Uptown Village" in Cedar Hill last night to do some witnessing. Uptown Village is a fairly new outdoor Mall and none of us had really been there yet so we decided to give it a try. Recently we've been looking for some place where we can go regularly to witness that isn't as far away as the downtown areas of Deep Ellum or Lower Greenville. I still want to go to the downtown areas, but just not every week.
Mark didn't come tonight, but he has suggested paying for a Daily pass on the Local Dallas Transit train/bus system and riding it for a few hours and sharing the gospel with the people who are in Transit. He and Luke have been taking the Transit to get to the YMCA where they are both working this summer (because it saves them money in Gas, and because as Luke said "We can Witness along the way" :) ) We'll probably try doing that soon as we explore different Streetlight ministries fishing trip possibilities.
We arrived at the Mall and scoped it out by driving around the perimiter (however we didn't drive around 7 times, and we didn't shout at the end :)). There weren't all that many people walking or milling around since it was past 10 PM. Barnes and Nobles and a couple of the restaurants were still open so we parked and headed to Barnes and Nobles. As soon as we got in the store, Luke seemed to dissapear on some sort of beeline towards the back of the store. I wasn't sure where he went, but Rick and I began to browse the store. A teenager with an interesting T-Shirt was walking by, and I decided wanted to ask him about his shirt. His shirt had a graphic image of the Mount Rushmore monument, but instead of the faces of the presidents, there were skulls. Rick hadn't seen the shirt or the guy, so I was trying to describe what the shirt was like, but I couldn't remember what the Monument was called. Rick couldn't either. There was a guy and a girl (late 20's, early 30's) just across from us so I leaned over and asked them "What's the name of the monument with the heads of the four presidents? We're trying to recall it but can't remember it. " They knew what we were talking about right away, and said "Mt. Rushmore!" Bingo! We were now in a conversation with the two of them. (The Guy with the T-shirt ended up going to the checkoutline anyway!) Perhaps sometimes God allows forgetfulness as a way to nudge us into initiating conversations with other people. :)
I always find that the most challenging part of any witnessing encounter has always been the transition to the spiritual and the things of God. I imagine that Satan could care less if we're great conversationalists, because that serves as no threat to him, but when we determine to bring up the things of God, he goes on overdrive on the counter attack, because the very message of the gospel is a threat to him. I think this a very real part of what happened last night.
Amy and Matt were more than happy to talk to us. They mentioned near the end of our conversation that they often go to places like Barnes and Nobles, etc , but they had NEVER
just stopped and chatted with strangers like this before, and Amy thought it was very cool that tonight had been different.
Back to my original thought. Satan doesn't want the things of God brought up, he doesn't want to you to hold up the mirror of the Law of God, he doesn't want Christ preached. So he brings his influence through discourgaement, fear,lack of boldness, etc. I felt like we breached on the things of God several times, but we didn't get much farther than a breach. I have this image in my mind as I'm writing that the Gospel is like a huge resivoir of water, stored up behind a Dam. When the Dam is released, the full power of that water can be unleashed. While we had our conversation, there were several opportunities where the floodgates were about to be opened, but instead we only managed to breach some water over the dam via the dams spillway. A little breach might draw someone's interest, but it doesn't unleash the stored power of all the water behind that Dam to completely wash over the person you're talking to. With Amy and Matt, this sort of "spillway" breach happened several times. They were both schooled in Philosphy, as it had been a significant part of both of their college experience, so I had asked who they thought was the greatest philospher of all time. Matt said Plato. After Matt explained why he thought why, Amy asked me and who I thought was the greatest Philospher. I meant to come right out and say Jesus Christ (John 7:46 They Answered "Never did any man speak like this man) but I hesitated, and the topic of conversation went elsewhere. An example of another breach: Somehow we had gotten on the topic of tyranny and I had asked Matt if he thought governmental tyranny was present in the United States. He said in many respects it was, and made the point that our society was in the process of transitioning from the "Rule of Law" to the "Rule of Man". This was another perfect opportunity for me to bring up the Law of God, and talk about how the deeper problem affecting humanity was not the exteranl governance of men, but was that the law of God needed to rule in men's hearts, and this could come only through what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Again I hesitated. (Argg!). A third breach example was when I asked the question what they thought was out there when we die. Amy really liked this question (and so did Matt) but didn't elaborate because she said it wasn't something that she could discuss in 5 minutes because it needed hours. She said if I gave her my e-mail address, that we could continue a discussion via e-mail. (So we did exchange e-mail addresses later). So instead of responding to that with something like "Well I think this is such an important topic to discuss, because none of us know the day that we will die. Why don't we take you guys out to I-HOP so we can discuss this further?" I just said ok, why don't we exchange e-mail addresses. " :(
So I don't want to make it sound like the conversation wasn't really awesome , because it was, and I don't want to make it sound it won't be used by God, because I know he blesses our efforts to be faithful, even if we feel like we missed an opportunity to really preach the entirety of the gospel. It's my own self reflection on why I wasn't bolder in pursuing to the full extent certain subjects we talked about which were natural and obvious springboards to the gospel. After all on the Drive down to the mall, I was the one who had brought up the verse "The Righteous are as Bold as a Lion" ! (Proverbs 28:1). So when I got home last night I did a search of my bible for the term "philosphy". I wanted to see what the Bible said about Philosphy, becuase our conversation centered a lot on the subject of philosophy. I think in doing this I kind of found my answer. (And knowing a lot more about Philosophy is not he correct Philosphy)
Here's the verse, with quite a bit of context: (1 Corinthians
My answer to the my above mentioned dilemna? I need to continually embrace the "foolishness of preaching". You see, there remains in me too much of a desire to be a man-pleaser, I don't want to appear or come across as foolsih to people, and as a result I can neglect to consider that what may APPEAR to the world as foolishness, is in reality, the wisdom of God. God's in the process of teaching me that a continuing part of dying daily to myself is dying to what anyone else thinks about me, and rather embracing what, though it may appear as foolishness to so many, is actually TRUE wisdom. This is especially a relevant verse in the real of personal witness, because many people are going to think our message is foolish by it's very nature, but as Christians we know that the preaching of the gospel is, in truth, the power of God unto salvation. (Romans 1:16).
" For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written: " I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philospher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through it's wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the Power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world, and the despised things-- and the things that are not- to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of Him that you are in Chrsit Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption "
Monday, June 16, 2008
That'll be $140 sir
Witnessing cost me $140 this weekend.
Who went?: Myself, Daniel Lamiman, Mark, Anne and Anna
How did you split up?: Mark and Daniel as one group, and Anne, Anna and
I as the second group.
How did the witnessing go?: As always, there were those who were receptive, and those who rejected the message. One particular individual, Chris, had a lot of knowledge of Christianity and what the bible teaches, but he was incredibly hard hearted and clearly rejected the truth.
Did you run into anybody you already knew?: We stopped and talked to Victor, who I met the first time we came to lower Greenville. Victor runs a hot dog stand and is a Christian. I stocked him up with some more tracts, and also gave him a CD with the following messages on it:
Hell's Best Kept Secret --> 1. http://www.oneplace.com/common/download-free.asp?fn=/rc/hbkscdnm01.mp3
What does God Owe you? -> http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com/podcast/media/2007-05-07_01_what_does_god_owe_you__(11-05-06).mp3
Challenge of the night: Witnessing to Chris the Episcopal Athiest. Chris was steeped in knowledge but he rejected the Bible. His objections to Christianity were mostly founded on the premise that the bible wasn't trustworthy, i.e. it had changed through the ages and that the council of Nicaea (When the N.T. was canonized) was a farce where a bunch of power hungry Catholics came together to decide how they could best use the scriptures to control the people. Having studied that period of church history myself, I knew this was a blatantly false statement, and what he was presenting was his own interpretive opinion of what happened, not the facts. (And I repeatedly told him so!). The council of Nicaea was simply an assembly of church leaders to determine which books/letters/epistles were ALREADY in use by the churches and already considered authoritative, and bind them together (as it were) in ONE book (Canonize) . Unfortunately Chris wasn't willing be reasonable in discussing what the historical record clearly demonstrates. Throughout the entire conversation Chris also mocked the concept of hell, God's justice, righteousness, the scriptures, etc. The sad part was, as he mocked, he was "nice" about it! In other words he wasn't visibly angry or emotional, which are are usually signs that people are under conviction and are uncomfortable or angry that their sin is being exposed for what it is, ( anger cause by conviction is actually a good sign.) People often get angry when their sins are exposed for what they really are under the light of God's law! I consistently attempted to refocus the conversation back to the Cross of Christ and reaching his conscience, as he tended to bring up a lot of rabbit trails. The smokescreen he continually propped up and stood upon was that the Bible had changed down through the ages. However, he never provided any examples of this other than his opinion about the council of Nicaea and he continued to be unreasonable when I presented the historical facts that contradicted his opinion. We spent about 30-40 minutes going back and forth talking with him, Anne and Anna occasionally jumping into the conversation. I had to chuckle when Victor (The Hot Dog Stand guy) who had been listening in the whole time proclaimed "Man, that was way better then the Presidential debates!" :)
What was the most unexpected occurrence of the night?: Heading back to where we had parked and realizing that my car was nowhere to be found in the parking lot.
What was the highlight of the night?: The people I witnessed to after coming back to our parking spot and discovering that my car was gone. Here's what happened. While we were waiting for my friend Luke to come pick us up and take us to the towing yard where my car had been towed, about 6 high school age guys on skateboards showed up in the parking lot. (By the way, my car getting towed is why witnessing cost me $140 :) I wasn't about to pass up witnessing to them since they were just skating around the parking lot olleying and doing kickflips and stuff (I used to do a lot of skateboarding so I can relate :) and we certainly were'nt going anwywhere:) . So I approached them and showed them the curved illusion tract. One of the guys had seen it before, but the rest of them were all really impressed. I then took one guy through the good person test while the entire group listened in. They all appeared to be very convicted. After taking them through the law and then presenting the gospel, they had some great questions, which I tried to answer. One guy had some really good questions about the story of Job in the bible. One his friends asked me a question that I've been asked before, but the genuineness in which he wanted to know the answer was so very different than the mocking demeanor in which I have seen the question asked by others. His question was "What if you are lying to us and there is no judgment day and there is no afterlife and it's just not true?" Being taken aback by the sincerity in which he asked the question, I complimented him on asking a good question. Usually people ask this in a mocking way, and they really don't want to know the answer, their real intent being evident in the tone in which the question is asked. Not so with this guy. I told them that if what I was presenting was not true the implications were that " we(humans) can do whatever we want, and as long as Man's law doesn't catch us, or catch up with us, as there will be no consequences or ultimate Justice in the afterlife. Justice can only be in this lifetime. The Nazi's who committed horrible atrocities in their lifetime but simply never got caught won't face any Justice for their crimes. The 100,000 murders that are committed every 10 years in the US, where the murderer is never brought to justice will never face any consequences for their crimes. All the lies, stealing, adultery, greed, pride, malice and slander that people have done will be of no consequence. I told these skateboarders that I would not want to live my life in such a universe where all the evil in the world and in us would never be brought to judgment. I encouraged the entire group to check out the bible themselves and see if what I was saying was true, and I told them I had no motive to lie to them. By this time my poor groggy friend luke had shown up and been waiting to drive us to the tow yard. So Anna (who had joined me in witnessing to the skateboarders) and I thanked the guys for talking and listening to us and exhorted them to soberly consider their eternal outcome, reminded of theirneed for repentance to God through Christ, and proclaimed to them that TODAY is the Day of salvation, and that Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross was the ONLY answer to the (and thier ) problem of sin.
Who went?: Myself, Daniel Lamiman, Mark, Anne and Anna
How did you split up?: Mark and Daniel as one group, and Anne, Anna and
I as the second group.
How did the witnessing go?: As always, there were those who were receptive, and those who rejected the message. One particular individual, Chris, had a lot of knowledge of Christianity and what the bible teaches, but he was incredibly hard hearted and clearly rejected the truth.
Did you run into anybody you already knew?: We stopped and talked to Victor, who I met the first time we came to lower Greenville. Victor runs a hot dog stand and is a Christian. I stocked him up with some more tracts, and also gave him a CD with the following messages on it:
Hell's Best Kept Secret --> 1. http://www.oneplace.com/common/download-free.asp?fn=/rc/hbkscdnm01.mp3
What does God Owe you? -> http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com/podcast/media/2007-05-07_01_what_does_god_owe_you__(11-05-06).mp3
Challenge of the night: Witnessing to Chris the Episcopal Athiest. Chris was steeped in knowledge but he rejected the Bible. His objections to Christianity were mostly founded on the premise that the bible wasn't trustworthy, i.e. it had changed through the ages and that the council of Nicaea (When the N.T. was canonized) was a farce where a bunch of power hungry Catholics came together to decide how they could best use the scriptures to control the people. Having studied that period of church history myself, I knew this was a blatantly false statement, and what he was presenting was his own interpretive opinion of what happened, not the facts. (And I repeatedly told him so!). The council of Nicaea was simply an assembly of church leaders to determine which books/letters/epistles were ALREADY in use by the churches and already considered authoritative, and bind them together (as it were) in ONE book (Canonize) . Unfortunately Chris wasn't willing be reasonable in discussing what the historical record clearly demonstrates. Throughout the entire conversation Chris also mocked the concept of hell, God's justice, righteousness, the scriptures, etc. The sad part was, as he mocked, he was "nice" about it! In other words he wasn't visibly angry or emotional, which are are usually signs that people are under conviction and are uncomfortable or angry that their sin is being exposed for what it is, ( anger cause by conviction is actually a good sign.) People often get angry when their sins are exposed for what they really are under the light of God's law! I consistently attempted to refocus the conversation back to the Cross of Christ and reaching his conscience, as he tended to bring up a lot of rabbit trails. The smokescreen he continually propped up and stood upon was that the Bible had changed down through the ages. However, he never provided any examples of this other than his opinion about the council of Nicaea and he continued to be unreasonable when I presented the historical facts that contradicted his opinion. We spent about 30-40 minutes going back and forth talking with him, Anne and Anna occasionally jumping into the conversation. I had to chuckle when Victor (The Hot Dog Stand guy) who had been listening in the whole time proclaimed "Man, that was way better then the Presidential debates!" :)
What was the most unexpected occurrence of the night?: Heading back to where we had parked and realizing that my car was nowhere to be found in the parking lot.
What was the highlight of the night?: The people I witnessed to after coming back to our parking spot and discovering that my car was gone. Here's what happened. While we were waiting for my friend Luke to come pick us up and take us to the towing yard where my car had been towed, about 6 high school age guys on skateboards showed up in the parking lot. (By the way, my car getting towed is why witnessing cost me $140 :) I wasn't about to pass up witnessing to them since they were just skating around the parking lot olleying and doing kickflips and stuff (I used to do a lot of skateboarding so I can relate :) and we certainly were'nt going anwywhere:) . So I approached them and showed them the curved illusion tract. One of the guys had seen it before, but the rest of them were all really impressed. I then took one guy through the good person test while the entire group listened in. They all appeared to be very convicted. After taking them through the law and then presenting the gospel, they had some great questions, which I tried to answer. One guy had some really good questions about the story of Job in the bible. One his friends asked me a question that I've been asked before, but the genuineness in which he wanted to know the answer was so very different than the mocking demeanor in which I have seen the question asked by others. His question was "What if you are lying to us and there is no judgment day and there is no afterlife and it's just not true?" Being taken aback by the sincerity in which he asked the question, I complimented him on asking a good question. Usually people ask this in a mocking way, and they really don't want to know the answer, their real intent being evident in the tone in which the question is asked. Not so with this guy. I told them that if what I was presenting was not true the implications were that " we(humans) can do whatever we want, and as long as Man's law doesn't catch us, or catch up with us, as there will be no consequences or ultimate Justice in the afterlife. Justice can only be in this lifetime. The Nazi's who committed horrible atrocities in their lifetime but simply never got caught won't face any Justice for their crimes. The 100,000 murders that are committed every 10 years in the US, where the murderer is never brought to justice will never face any consequences for their crimes. All the lies, stealing, adultery, greed, pride, malice and slander that people have done will be of no consequence. I told these skateboarders that I would not want to live my life in such a universe where all the evil in the world and in us would never be brought to judgment. I encouraged the entire group to check out the bible themselves and see if what I was saying was true, and I told them I had no motive to lie to them. By this time my poor groggy friend luke had shown up and been waiting to drive us to the tow yard. So Anna (who had joined me in witnessing to the skateboarders) and I thanked the guys for talking and listening to us and exhorted them to soberly consider their eternal outcome, reminded of theirneed for repentance to God through Christ, and proclaimed to them that TODAY is the Day of salvation, and that Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross was the ONLY answer to the (and thier ) problem of sin.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
A new fishing hole - Lower Greenville
Word on the street in Deep Ellum recently has been that Lower Grenville is where people are going for the night life, so that's were we went last night.
Along for the ride: Daniel Lamiman, Dara Robbins, Emmanuel Zeli, and Joel Roberts.
We spent a bit of time just cruising down the street to get and idea of the area. There were definitely more people here than in Deep Ellum.
The first person we encountered was a guy sitting in a parked car in the MacDonald's parking lot with his window upen. Dara went up to the guy and gave him a tract. After she had walked away I went to talk with the him. I found out his name was Byron and he was waiting for his friend to get off work from Macdonalds. I've found that when people are just sitting around waiting for something you've often got a perfect witness opportunity, because they aren't going to go anywhere, and they're often bored and willing to talk to you. When I showed Byron the tracts I had, he professed to be a Christian . He was at least a church-goer and was familiar with scripture. Whether he was Christian or not, I chose to hold up the mirror of the moral law of God by taking him through the ten commandments in the form of the good person test. It's my conviction a true Christian will have no problem being put under the blazing light of God's law, because a large part of their conversion to Christ would have first involved the conviction of sin via the law (See Romans 7:7) .The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4:3-4
"But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of
man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself;
yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord."
Note Paul says it was a small thing if he was (1) judged by those he was writing to (Christians), and (2) or by Man's judgement in general (the world). As Christians we know that it is God who judges us, and we know that the very Son of God testified that "every idle word we speak we will have to give account of on the day of Judgement." I think Paul's point is that it's not a big deal to be judged by a mere man when you've already submitted yourself to God's judgment by sheltering yourself in Christ. That's why I'm not hesitant to bring the law before a professing Christian, and I wasn't hesitant to bring the law before Byron. (I would personally be overjoyed if someone witnessed to me with the law of God as the starting point since I've yet to be on the receiving end of being biblically witnessed to :( ) Nonetheless, whether Byron was truly a Christian or not, he was very open to everything I talked about, and he kept mentioning how it was such a good thing that we were doing. I asked him whether his friend that he was there to pick up was saved, and he said he didn't know, so I exhorted him that if he truly cared about his friend, he ought to care enough to share the gospel with him. He also heartily agreed when I brought up the fact that none of us there that night had any guarantee that there would even be a tomorrow for us. He was very appreciative of our conversation, and even said at the end how he ought to be out sharing his faith like we were doing.
Later on we approached four guys in an empty parking lot who were standing next to four really nice motorbikes. These guys were pretty buff. I showed them the curved illusion tract,. They thought that was interesting. One of the guys, Joe, said he had a christian background when I inquired about what they believed, but Joe didn't seem interested in talking about it, in fact he almost seemed ashamed to talk about it with his friends around. One of the guys, J.R. said he had a Catholic background. I led him through the good person test, while his three friend listened on. After he self admitted to being a liar, a theif, and an adulterer at heart according to God's standard, I asked him where God should send him. He said Hell. I expounded on God's justice and how they were in need of righteousness to enter God's kingdom and to be reconciled to God, explaining that God would be just in sending all who have sinned against him to hell. I explained using the analogy of a human court what God did on their behalf through Jesus. I could tell that several of the guys were under conviction, and I think it made them uncomfortable, because suddenly they"had to go". I exhorted them to not just take my word for things, but to check out the bible themselves, and to see if what it was claiming was true. Their names were Joe, Dino, J.R. and Mark.
A litle further down the street, we stopped by one of the hot dog stands. He actually waved us down because he was trying to market the food that we had. We stopped briefly to talk to him, and it became apparent withing a few minutes that he was a Christian. I asked him if he wanted some tracts to be able to hand out at his Hot Dog stand , and he said "sure" so I handed him a stack, and he mentioned how great it would be to be able to give them away. He had some really good advice about where to park along other insights about the area, and we were all especially encouraged to run into another Christian.
I also had a good conversation with one of the owners of a store that sold mostly pipes. He expressly stated near the beginning of my conversation with him that he wasn't interested in talking about religion. I never let that sort of response be a deterrent to me, so I posed the question to hime "What do you think is out there after we die?". He seemed very interested in this question. Which of course led to other questions, like if he believed in God, whether thought all the beauty and design and complexity we observe in the creation could have just somehow evolved, etc. He agreed with me when I reasoned with him about how the creation testifies to the creator. I didn't get to go any further with him because it was time to leave, but I left him with the thought that if there is a creator, then the next thing he needed to figure out is what that creator expects of him, whereby I thrust a "You are here tract" into his hand told him to read it, because there was incredibly important information on the back. He said he would.
On the way back to the car, a guy came and walked along side us. He seemed to have a speech impediment. However when I asked him about it, he told us that his jaw had been broken when he was mugged. I don't what it is these days with meeting the guys who've gotten mugged recently (see a previous post I wrote recently) .It was a substantial walk back to the car so as we walked along we talked to him. He professed to be a Christian. I became convinced that he was a true Christian after I had asked im a lot of probing questions on the way back. While we were talking I picked up that he need help to be able to get into the shelter, so I gave him some money. He asked us to pray for him, so we did, Dara prayed for healing for his Jaw, and I just prayed in general. He also prayed for us. As we were saying goodbye, he had an interesting comment, because he addressed Daniel and told Daniel that Daniel would "teach many people the word of the Lord" or something along those lines. I guess it was kind of like a prophecy or a word for Daniel, which we all thought was profoundly curious, but very very interesting. We've met some pretty interesting peope in the past, who act like Christian so that you will help them out and give them money, or they claim to have a gift of prophecy and start declaring prophecies on your life but I've noticed that we're always in agreement about being bothered in our spirits by those people because we know something just isn't right in the spirit of their interaction with us, but I did not feel at all this way with this guy, everything about him seemed sincere and genuine. It was an Amazing evening.
After this first trip to a new area, I am convinced that Lower Greenville will be a a great spot for a new fishing hole for Streetlight ministries. Thanks for you prayers!
Friday, May 16, 2008
The eternal skeptic and the sentimental sinner
Another night where God has blessed us with two carfulls of laborers. Tonight was a good night.
Here's how we paired up.
Bill and Jason
Luke and Michael
Vince and Mark
Emmanuel and Daniel
It was cool to see Vince come out, since he's getting married next weekend.
It was Bill's first time joining us. he went with me, and I thought he did a great job and demonstrated a great deal of confidence in talking with people.
Which was good because most of our conversations seemed to be with people who at least to some degree or other, mocked the word of God. Our first conversation of any length (we had handed out tracts up to that point) was with three guys who were on their way to their car and we stopped to talk to them. (Getting their attention using tracts). One of the guys obviously had some knowledge of the bible because he knew quite a few scriptures, but If I remember correctly, they had all been drinking pretty heavily. As we shared the gospel and contended with the most vocal guy (whose philosophy seemed to be eternal skepticism ) the guy who knew some scriptures seemed the most convicted, while the other guys mostly debated and mocked and rejected the word of God. It seemed that the light we were exposing through the scriptures we were sharing eventually bothered (convicted) them enough that they re-iterated they had to leave. I was saddened to see the guy who knew some scripture and appeared to actually be under a good amount of conviction seem to almost be dragged away b his friends (not physically, but via their peer pressure).
The other conversation I remember (I'm writing this a good while after the fact) was one we started with about 3-4 guys outside one of the tattoo parlors. This conversation was unique, because one of the guys simply could not reconcile his own concept of love with certain truths of scripture and the God revealed in scripture. He also seemed to equate his "feelings' with his "conscience" as if they were one and the same, and then attempted to justify things in his life and use that as his bass to took issue that God would hold him accountable for his feelings. I kept trying to break apart his presupposition and premise that his feelings and conscience were one in the same. We went back and forth on this in a round robin fashion for a while, until I finally concluded that simple reasoning with him wasn't getting us anywhere, and so I said something along the lines of
I was encouraged that Bill was there because he did a great deal of talking and bringing up scriptures. Often I'm partnered up with someone younger from the High School youth group that I work with, and so often it's more of my partner shadowing me and being mentored/discipled by me until they gain the confidence and boldness to initiate witnessing to people on their own perogative, so it was cool to be with someone who did more talking.
Here's how we paired up.
Bill and Jason
Luke and Michael
Vince and Mark
Emmanuel and Daniel
It was cool to see Vince come out, since he's getting married next weekend.
It was Bill's first time joining us. he went with me, and I thought he did a great job and demonstrated a great deal of confidence in talking with people.
Which was good because most of our conversations seemed to be with people who at least to some degree or other, mocked the word of God. Our first conversation of any length (we had handed out tracts up to that point) was with three guys who were on their way to their car and we stopped to talk to them. (Getting their attention using tracts). One of the guys obviously had some knowledge of the bible because he knew quite a few scriptures, but If I remember correctly, they had all been drinking pretty heavily. As we shared the gospel and contended with the most vocal guy (whose philosophy seemed to be eternal skepticism ) the guy who knew some scriptures seemed the most convicted, while the other guys mostly debated and mocked and rejected the word of God. It seemed that the light we were exposing through the scriptures we were sharing eventually bothered (convicted) them enough that they re-iterated they had to leave. I was saddened to see the guy who knew some scripture and appeared to actually be under a good amount of conviction seem to almost be dragged away b his friends (not physically, but via their peer pressure).
The other conversation I remember (I'm writing this a good while after the fact) was one we started with about 3-4 guys outside one of the tattoo parlors. This conversation was unique, because one of the guys simply could not reconcile his own concept of love with certain truths of scripture and the God revealed in scripture. He also seemed to equate his "feelings' with his "conscience" as if they were one and the same, and then attempted to justify things in his life and use that as his bass to took issue that God would hold him accountable for his feelings. I kept trying to break apart his presupposition and premise that his feelings and conscience were one in the same. We went back and forth on this in a round robin fashion for a while, until I finally concluded that simple reasoning with him wasn't getting us anywhere, and so I said something along the lines of
"Look, The Bible says that you're without excuse for your sin, whether you call it a feeling or not, and if the Bible is true, then what you're saying is just a smokescreen for the real issue, which is that you love your sin and you simply don't WANT to repent and put your trust and faith in Jesus Christ, and I'll show it to you straight from scripture. "I then proceeded to read the entirety of Romans 1 starting with verse 18 and going to the end of the chapter.
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;At this point after I had read the scripture, we only had a few more minutes before we had to go, so we exhorted them to search out the truth and to each consider the Word of God themselves and what it claimed, especially the claim that God commanded them to repent. Acts 17:31 "..but now (God) commands ALL men EVERYWHERE to repent, because he has appointed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness... " (Emphasis mine).19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
I was encouraged that Bill was there because he did a great deal of talking and bringing up scriptures. Often I'm partnered up with someone younger from the High School youth group that I work with, and so often it's more of my partner shadowing me and being mentored/discipled by me until they gain the confidence and boldness to initiate witnessing to people on their own perogative, so it was cool to be with someone who did more talking.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Artfully avoiding the real issues
"Come after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men".
We had two carloads tonight, which was exciting.. I was stoked to see such a big group. The group included Myself, Mark, Emmanuel, Sarah Jo, Kenny and Michelle, Luke, Spenser and Daniel.
Since we had 8 people, we split into 4 groups, and Sarah Jo and I teamed up. She wrote up a great report of the people that we talked to.
Here's Sarah's report (in italics)
Friday, we hit the streets again. I can officially say "again" since I am now a repeat offender. ;-) Two car loads went. Luke, Mark, Daniel and Immanuel were in one car, Kenny, Michelle, Jason and me were another car. We split into groups of two. I went with Jason since I’m still learning and didn’t need to say much. I was surprised to see that an area that had been teaming with people on my first trip was now lifeless. Jason told us that a lot of the clubs and parties have moved to another area so we might try witnessing in that area in the future.
We ran into a group of people outside an art gallery. Jason handed them a track which they started reading. Part way through one girl said rather accusingly “Oh, are you church people?” to which we had to wonder, ‘what exactly does that mean?’ but Jason told them where we went to church and then proceeded to have an in-depth conversation with two of the guys present. He started out talking mainly with Paul using the “good person test”. Paul believes that everything is chaos and that no outside moral standard exists nor is one written on our hearts (Romans 1). He readily agreed that he did bad things but tried to argue that we only think it’s bad because our culture has pre-conditioned us. He tried to use rape as an example saying that we define it a certain way and think of it a certain way because our culture, and that in ancient days what we consider rape was accepted. A girl in the group refuted him suddenly by saying it was wrong no matter how you put it. That was an encouraging surprise. About this time the group left except for Paul and another guy whose name is Robert? The conversation was all over the place but you could tell that Paul had some knowledge in the scriptures and was familiar with Christian terms. He revealed that his parents were Lutheran but seemed to have a big problem with the way Christians acted and used it to argue his point that there was no outside moral standard. He talked about the crusades, etc. It was really depressing. Jason made a good point to him that God hates hypocrisy, that God will judge righteously, and that He will take care of all those people who did wrong while proclaiming that they were doing right. Paul didn’t want to admit that he would have to answer to God for his own behavior. He didn’t want to admit what was written on his heart – the law of God – and that his own conscious testified against him.
Paul left and we ended up talking with the guy who was hanging around. He seemed a lot more open to the gospel. He talked about believing in Jesus and how it was all about how you feel and there’s forgiveness and grace. It almost seemed like he was using that as an excuse to say that he was okay in the scheme of things because he believed Jesus was real (not because he had repented). Jason pointed out that even the demons believe in Jesus and that, as a righteous judge, God may understand that you feel sorry but He can’t just let you off the hook. If a judge in our courts had a murderer, no matter how contrite and no matter if he realized what he did was wrong, the judge would not be considered “just” if he let the murderer go without consequences. Jason was trying to get at the point of Jesus and his death but we never quite got there. Robert kept veering to the topic of how you felt. He didn’t want the consequences, they didn’t feel good. I wanted to say, God cares about how you feel but He cares about your soul more. At that time the group came back (but not Paul).
Robert’s? attitude towards us was really positive and it was just as hard to see him come so close as it was to see Paul be so far away. The night ended on an awesome note because we asked Robert? if we could pray for him and the girl who spoke up earlier, Shannon, came over and was like – let’s do it!- and then she talked about how messed up her sister was and started telling us all this stuff that we could pray about. It’s amazing how open people are sometimes. I don’t think she was a Christian but when we prayed – she seemed really grateful and said “People still care.” I told her God cared- which may sound cliché but it’s true and the truth will stay with her far after we’ve left.
We had two carloads tonight, which was exciting.. I was stoked to see such a big group. The group included Myself, Mark, Emmanuel, Sarah Jo, Kenny and Michelle, Luke, Spenser and Daniel.
Since we had 8 people, we split into 4 groups, and Sarah Jo and I teamed up. She wrote up a great report of the people that we talked to.
Here's Sarah's report (in italics)
Friday, we hit the streets again. I can officially say "again" since I am now a repeat offender. ;-) Two car loads went. Luke, Mark, Daniel and Immanuel were in one car, Kenny, Michelle, Jason and me were another car. We split into groups of two. I went with Jason since I’m still learning and didn’t need to say much. I was surprised to see that an area that had been teaming with people on my first trip was now lifeless. Jason told us that a lot of the clubs and parties have moved to another area so we might try witnessing in that area in the future.
We ran into a group of people outside an art gallery. Jason handed them a track which they started reading. Part way through one girl said rather accusingly “Oh, are you church people?” to which we had to wonder, ‘what exactly does that mean?’ but Jason told them where we went to church and then proceeded to have an in-depth conversation with two of the guys present. He started out talking mainly with Paul using the “good person test”. Paul believes that everything is chaos and that no outside moral standard exists nor is one written on our hearts (Romans 1). He readily agreed that he did bad things but tried to argue that we only think it’s bad because our culture has pre-conditioned us. He tried to use rape as an example saying that we define it a certain way and think of it a certain way because our culture, and that in ancient days what we consider rape was accepted. A girl in the group refuted him suddenly by saying it was wrong no matter how you put it. That was an encouraging surprise. About this time the group left except for Paul and another guy whose name is Robert? The conversation was all over the place but you could tell that Paul had some knowledge in the scriptures and was familiar with Christian terms. He revealed that his parents were Lutheran but seemed to have a big problem with the way Christians acted and used it to argue his point that there was no outside moral standard. He talked about the crusades, etc. It was really depressing. Jason made a good point to him that God hates hypocrisy, that God will judge righteously, and that He will take care of all those people who did wrong while proclaiming that they were doing right. Paul didn’t want to admit that he would have to answer to God for his own behavior. He didn’t want to admit what was written on his heart – the law of God – and that his own conscious testified against him.
Paul left and we ended up talking with the guy who was hanging around. He seemed a lot more open to the gospel. He talked about believing in Jesus and how it was all about how you feel and there’s forgiveness and grace. It almost seemed like he was using that as an excuse to say that he was okay in the scheme of things because he believed Jesus was real (not because he had repented). Jason pointed out that even the demons believe in Jesus and that, as a righteous judge, God may understand that you feel sorry but He can’t just let you off the hook. If a judge in our courts had a murderer, no matter how contrite and no matter if he realized what he did was wrong, the judge would not be considered “just” if he let the murderer go without consequences. Jason was trying to get at the point of Jesus and his death but we never quite got there. Robert kept veering to the topic of how you felt. He didn’t want the consequences, they didn’t feel good. I wanted to say, God cares about how you feel but He cares about your soul more. At that time the group came back (but not Paul).
Robert’s? attitude towards us was really positive and it was just as hard to see him come so close as it was to see Paul be so far away. The night ended on an awesome note because we asked Robert? if we could pray for him and the girl who spoke up earlier, Shannon, came over and was like – let’s do it!- and then she talked about how messed up her sister was and started telling us all this stuff that we could pray about. It’s amazing how open people are sometimes. I don’t think she was a Christian but when we prayed – she seemed really grateful and said “People still care.” I told her God cared- which may sound cliché but it’s true and the truth will stay with her far after we’ve left.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Valet Parking
I love the words in the following song from Gospel Rapper Lecrae:
So we went to Deep Ellum on Saturday night (instead of staying "hid inside our comfort zones at home in mama's basement" as the song says ) Daniel, Mark, Spenser, Emmanuel and myself were in the carload that came. After we got down there we split up as normal, and Spenser and Daniel came with me, and Emmanuel and Mark went together. Spenser and Daniel and I spent most of our time outside of one of the clubs that has valet parking. I recognized the guy who was working as a parking attendant because I had made small talk with him on a previous occasion, but had not gotten a chance to share the gospel before because he had been too busy working. It was a different situation tonight as he wasn't nearly as busy this time, so I was SET on sharing the gospel with him this time. And it happened! I was able to thoroughly present the law, righteousness, judgment, hell, repentance, and faith with him over the course of the evening. I took him through the good person test (http://www.goodpersontest.com/). He thought he was a good person but after failing the test saw that he wasn't according to God's standard perfect standard in the Ten Commandments. I then thoroughly explained the gospel. I saturated it with scripture after scripture. I told him near the end of the conversation that if we were to meet on the day of Judgement I was free from his blood (Ezekiel 3:18, Acts 18:6, Acts 20:26-27) There is no way that Dan can say now that he hasn't heard the Gospel explained clearly, and Dan understands fully what his responsibility is in responding to what he's heard.
The conversation with Dan was periodically interrupted by people coming to get their keys for their cars, or cars full of people pulling up on the street and asking Dan for directions. I had the perfect tract along with me for this, because as Dan would give them directions, I would thrust the "You are here" tract (http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=254) into the open window of the car and say things like "Make sure you know where you are, Here's a map." or "Don't get lost again, here's directions" etc. I also had the curved illusion tract(http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=222) along with me, and while Dan would explain the directions to the driver, I would show the other passengers the curved illusion tract, which they found highly entertaining. One guy liked it so much he took the tract and started demonstrating it to Dan.
Throughout my entire conversation with Dan, I noticed that just down the street, a guy I had tried to talk to several weeks was leaning up against a building talking to another guy, and he kept looking over at us the entire time. This was the same guy who wouldn't tell me his name several weeks ago, and who mocked me when I was sharing the gospel. (See the previous post where I describe "nameless guy" http://streetlightministries.blogspot.com/2008/04/although-weve-gone-witnessing-in-deep.html)
I'm sure he knew exactly what we were doing and I imagine our presence there could very well have been bothering his conscience. By the time my conversation with Dan was over, he was gone, otherwise I would have made a second attempt to talk to him.
We also saw God's provision in that a few minutes after we left in the car to head home , it started pouring rain. I noticed that west of Dallas it was raining, and I noticed just south of Dallas it was raining, but we had stayed dry right up until we left. I realized later how much of a blessing this was, because I had stuck my camera in the bag that I carry tracts in, and it would have certainly gotten wet had we been caught in the rain.
Send me I'll go,
Send me I'll go,
Send me I'll go,
lemme go lemme go!
(repeat x4)
I seen it with my own two,
there's no way i can show you
a perfectly poverty stricken people with no view.
And i bet you can't believe this,
they never heard of jesus.
Heard of young buck, lil wayne, and young jeezy.
No one's signing up to go on missions this summer.
Rather sit at home and watch Xzibit pimping a hummer
while a nine year old is shot down.
No one's screaming 'stop now!'
no bridge illustrations for criminals who on lock down.
People deep in africa
looking for an answer bra'.
In china man,
they're dying man,
until they know who died for sins.
So look what grace did.
Not for us to stay hid
inside our comfort zones
at home in mama's basement.
Get out on the grind y'all.
Ain't no better time dawg.
I know y'all read the great commission.
Let me just remind y'all:
make disciples of the nations.
Teach em to obey the Lord.
Hate to never lead someone to Christ before I face the Lord.
So we went to Deep Ellum on Saturday night (instead of staying "hid inside our comfort zones at home in mama's basement" as the song says ) Daniel, Mark, Spenser, Emmanuel and myself were in the carload that came. After we got down there we split up as normal, and Spenser and Daniel came with me, and Emmanuel and Mark went together. Spenser and Daniel and I spent most of our time outside of one of the clubs that has valet parking. I recognized the guy who was working as a parking attendant because I had made small talk with him on a previous occasion, but had not gotten a chance to share the gospel before because he had been too busy working. It was a different situation tonight as he wasn't nearly as busy this time, so I was SET on sharing the gospel with him this time. And it happened! I was able to thoroughly present the law, righteousness, judgment, hell, repentance, and faith with him over the course of the evening. I took him through the good person test (http://www.goodpersontest.com/). He thought he was a good person but after failing the test saw that he wasn't according to God's standard perfect standard in the Ten Commandments. I then thoroughly explained the gospel. I saturated it with scripture after scripture. I told him near the end of the conversation that if we were to meet on the day of Judgement I was free from his blood (Ezekiel 3:18, Acts 18:6, Acts 20:26-27) There is no way that Dan can say now that he hasn't heard the Gospel explained clearly, and Dan understands fully what his responsibility is in responding to what he's heard.
The conversation with Dan was periodically interrupted by people coming to get their keys for their cars, or cars full of people pulling up on the street and asking Dan for directions. I had the perfect tract along with me for this, because as Dan would give them directions, I would thrust the "You are here" tract (http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=254) into the open window of the car and say things like "Make sure you know where you are, Here's a map." or "Don't get lost again, here's directions" etc. I also had the curved illusion tract(http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=222) along with me, and while Dan would explain the directions to the driver, I would show the other passengers the curved illusion tract, which they found highly entertaining. One guy liked it so much he took the tract and started demonstrating it to Dan.
Throughout my entire conversation with Dan, I noticed that just down the street, a guy I had tried to talk to several weeks was leaning up against a building talking to another guy, and he kept looking over at us the entire time. This was the same guy who wouldn't tell me his name several weeks ago, and who mocked me when I was sharing the gospel. (See the previous post where I describe "nameless guy" http://streetlightministries.blogspot.com/2008/04/although-weve-gone-witnessing-in-deep.html)
I'm sure he knew exactly what we were doing and I imagine our presence there could very well have been bothering his conscience. By the time my conversation with Dan was over, he was gone, otherwise I would have made a second attempt to talk to him.
We also saw God's provision in that a few minutes after we left in the car to head home , it started pouring rain. I noticed that west of Dallas it was raining, and I noticed just south of Dallas it was raining, but we had stayed dry right up until we left. I realized later how much of a blessing this was, because I had stuck my camera in the bag that I carry tracts in, and it would have certainly gotten wet had we been caught in the rain.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
To this man will I look
Although we've gone witnessing in Deep Ellum since last time I posted, I haven't posted about those times, but we did go last Saturday night.
Luke, Spenser, Daniel and Myself were the "fishermen" tonight. I went with Daniel and Spenser went with Luke. This was the weekend of the Deep Ellum arts festival so all the streets were closed off and there were display tents everywhere, but by the time we arrived (at around 11:00PM) all the tents were shut down for the night.
After we parked, we immediately ran into several people from Deliverance Bible Church. They were just leaving, and had also been down there for the purpose of witnessing. We were greatly encouraged by talking to them. I felt kind of like it was a tag team, and we were taking the next shift. :)
Before I go on, just a note about Deliverance Bible Church. It's a church that's located in Hurst, here in the metroplex, near Fort Worth. I first heard about the church a couple of years ago when Luke and I met a couple of guys from the church while they were witnessing in Deep Ellum. That night we had joined up with them and spent the night witnessing with them. They were using tracts from living waters, and also had some of their own tracts, which I was very impresed with. Since that first time running into them, I think we've probably run into people in Deep Ellum from their church once every couple of months. I've also visited the church several times and gone to their Sunday service. I don't know that I've ever met people more geniuine and zealous in their faith then the people I've met from Deliverance. The pastor, Cleetus Adrian, is very unique. I was describing him to a friend the other day, and the way I described him was that "he's kind of like Napoleon Dynamite, but with righteousness". If that instills in you a bit of curiosity :) , I highly recommend that you check out their churches podcast. --> http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com .
Although the night started out really slow, eventually the conversations came, and came on strong. Jimmy was standing outside a club on street waiting for his friends, so I offered him a tract. It was the Worlds Most popular things scratch off tract. He took the tract and told me that he probably wouldn't be able to do it because he was kind of drunk. I was like "ok" and then told him it was a christian tract and asked if he had a christian background. He had a baptist background. He said he was a good person so I led him through the good person test. After the test, when prompted whether he thought God should send him to heaven or hell, he said heaven, and when asked why, he stated that it had been a long time since he had done those things and he had done a lot of good and reformed his ways since then. After reasoning with him, he agreed that a judge wouldn't let a criminal go for those reasons, and agreed that God shouldn't either. At that point he said that he had to go so I quickly summed it all up with the fact that Jesus had died for him, and sacrificed everything, much like somebody walking into a court room after selling everything they owned to pay an undeserving criminal's fine for him. I thanked him for talking to me, and as he left, his facial expressions showed that he was thinking deeply about what we had just talked about.
I started up a conversaton with the guy running the hot dog stand. The Hot dog stand is right at the two main intersections in Deep Ellum, right in front of one of the more popular clubs, so there's always quite a bit of activity in that area. Tonight was actually a slow night for him (probably because of competition from other vendors due to the Arts festival) so I struck up a conversation. His name was Sydney, and he claimed to be a Christian. When he wasn't working there in Deep Ellum, he drove a school bus. and he had 4 grown kids. I asked him if he was satisfied with how his life turned out, and with how his kids turned out. He said a lot of things could have been better, but he couldn't complain. One of his kids was permanently confined to a wheel chair after having his spine shattered in a tree cutting accident, and he certainly wished that was different. I asked him when he became a christian, and he said that he had been a christian all his life, as that was how he was raised. I inquired how his life was different or had been changed due to his faith. He didn't really have a whole lot to say in answer to this question, so I explained how when I was born again and truly repented of my sins during my college years, everything about me changed. I had an entirely new focus and direction, things I used to love I hated, things I used to hate I now loved. After that he appeared slightly more defensive, as he swung the conversation to how there are so many diffferent ways to share one's faith, and he wasn't one to push his beliefs on other people. I did a great deal of reasoning with him and explained that if one of the most loving things that we can do is warn people of the consequences of their sin and the consequences of sinning against a holy and just God and warn them what the word of God says, so they can see the awesomeness of the glorious gospel, and that we shouldn't shrink back if people are offended by the truth.. I mentioned 2 Corinthians 5:11 that "knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." Right around this point, Luke and Spenser showed up at the hot dog stand. Luke started to order a hotdog and a drink, which I thought was odd, because we don't usually get food when we're up there, but then I realized that he was buying it for a guy that he was talking to. Luke gave the guy he was with a the food, then gave some money to a guy who Spenser was talking to and then that guy gave
Luke a transit ticket for the Dallas bus system. The ticket was still good until 3:00am that night. I realized that Luke was buying the ticket to give to the guy he had bought the hotdog for, apparently because the guy didn't have a way of getting home and had asked him for some money to be able to get home. However when Luke attempted to give the guy the ticket (instead of just giving him money), the guy freaked out on him and said that the ticket wouldn't do him any good. The ticket indicated in bold print that it was good until 3:00 AM and the guy Luke had bought it from even tired to reason with the guy Luke was giving to, but the guy was freaking out, acting like we were trying to swindle him or something. At that point it became pretty obvious that something else was motiviating him, and his lashing out in desperation at Luke's act of kindness was likely because he was being motivated by a serious drug craving. He wouldn't take the ticket, and was making such a fuss that the hot dog guy, who was observing this whole thing take place told him to leave. He left, without taking the transit ticket, and we sat there saddened at the whole affair. The guy who Luke had bought the ticket from was really impacted by how Luke responded graciously to such ingratitude expressed toward his act of kidness. We continued to talk to him for quite a while. The Holy spirit had obviously been making an impact on this guy, as he told us about his aunt who was a Christian, who had suffered a lot on his behalf and for others in his family because of her faith. He mentioned during his life his aunt had prayed for him constantly, especially during a period when he was in and out of Jail, and he had seen the tangible results to her prayers. One of the examples he gave was when he was about to make a decision that would have likely resulted in him ending up in Jail, she had prayed that God would do whatever necessary (e.g. break his legs) so that he would be unable to do what he was planning on doing, and he described how he had immediately become very sick and weak, and had been unable to carry out what he had been planning on doing. He was very humble and had alot of genuine questions. He asked us whether we thought if someone who was a Christian and commited suicide could still go to heaven. I told him I didn't know the answer to that question, and that I couldn't come to a verdict and had to remain silent on that question, as only God knew. Then he dropped the bombshell that revealed why he was asking that question. Apparently the aunt who had prayed for him for so long was the only Christian in his family and he described how they had put her through such hell, that she had become so discouraged and despairing that she had ended up taking her own life.
Luke and Spenser continued talking to the guy, but I was distracted by someone who came up to our circle and humbly told me "Thank you guys so much for being out here witnessing and sharing your faith". He looked SO familiar, and after a few seconds I realized that he was a Christian we had talked to about a year ago, whom we had helped out with some money and had given him a ride. I remembered his name, which was Robert. He had a huge bruise under his eye so I asked him where that came from. Apparently he got paid for some work he did the other week and some homeless guys saw him get paid and ended up mugging him and took his money. He asked us to pray for him, which we did, and I willingly gave him all the cash I had in my wallet in order to help him out. He asked me where would be going to church the next day, so I told him, and he asked if I would be willing to come pick him up so that he could visit my church. (It didn't work out the next day, but I got his e-mail address an he got my phone number and e-mail address as well so we might be able to swing it next week. ) A year ago when we talked to him i remember how encouraged I was at his confidence in God, and I felt the same sense of encouragement this time.
Since the four of us were all together now, we decided it would be good to head out because it was getting late. We were walking past a club, and I offered a tract to a guy who was sitting on a bench outside the door. He had obviously been drinking and said mockingly, " why don't you tell me why I need this from you or should take this from you.". I told him I would be glad to, and asked him what his name was. He replied, "that's irrelvant, you don't need to know may name". I told him that my name was Jason, and that I like to know the name of the person I'm talking to but if he didn't want to tell me his name, that was fine. At this point, another guy who was standing there seemed interested in the conversation, and he was like" yeah, why don't you tell us why you think we need this." He was willingly to tell me his name, which was Bryan, so I addressed my next statements to both of them. I mentioned that I had just given them a Christian tract and asked the nameless guy if he thought he was a good person. He said he was, so I started questing him using, of course, the standard of the Ten Commandments. Nameless guy was a little too hiked up on alcohol and beliggerent to have a good conversation so I addressed most of what I was saying to Bryan while nameless guy listened in.
I had a very long conversation with Bryan. Luke and Spenser and Daniel were also in and out of our conversation in the midst of talking to other people who were milling about. Bryan had a Christian upbringing, and knew a lot about the Bible, but kept saying things like "Jesus came to be an example and show us a better way to live" and didn't seem to think sin was a very big deal, and also he had some very strange viewpoints philosophically(that contradict bible believing Christianity) . Although he respected the Bible and used it to talk about Jesus, at the same time he questioned the validity of the Bible. It seemed that he was picking and choosing what he liked and what he didn't like. He was very open to discussion of just about anything though, so we talked at length. One of his major hangups was he couldn't reconcile the justice of people spending an eternity in hell. I reasoned with him that in a system of Justice, the severity of the punishment given is a gauge of how heinous the crime comitted was, and that God is so infinitley holy and good and just, and sin so heinous that hell is the only just punnishment for sin. By this time it was getting really late and we really needed to go, so I told him that I didn't know what was going on in his heart, but that if he knew he wasn't right with God (after I had led him through the ten commandments) , he should do something about it, and that If his eyes and my eyes met on the day of Judgement, I would be free from his blood, for I hadn't ceased to warn him to repent. (See Ezekiel 33:7-9) I concluded by sharing this verse with him and exhorted him that these words from Isaiah 66:2 described the kind of person God would not despise --> "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." We thanked him for talking to us, and he did the same, and then after he gave us all a hug, we left.
Luke, Spenser, Daniel and Myself were the "fishermen" tonight. I went with Daniel and Spenser went with Luke. This was the weekend of the Deep Ellum arts festival so all the streets were closed off and there were display tents everywhere, but by the time we arrived (at around 11:00PM) all the tents were shut down for the night.
After we parked, we immediately ran into several people from Deliverance Bible Church. They were just leaving, and had also been down there for the purpose of witnessing. We were greatly encouraged by talking to them. I felt kind of like it was a tag team, and we were taking the next shift. :)
Before I go on, just a note about Deliverance Bible Church. It's a church that's located in Hurst, here in the metroplex, near Fort Worth. I first heard about the church a couple of years ago when Luke and I met a couple of guys from the church while they were witnessing in Deep Ellum. That night we had joined up with them and spent the night witnessing with them. They were using tracts from living waters, and also had some of their own tracts, which I was very impresed with. Since that first time running into them, I think we've probably run into people in Deep Ellum from their church once every couple of months. I've also visited the church several times and gone to their Sunday service. I don't know that I've ever met people more geniuine and zealous in their faith then the people I've met from Deliverance. The pastor, Cleetus Adrian, is very unique. I was describing him to a friend the other day, and the way I described him was that "he's kind of like Napoleon Dynamite, but with righteousness". If that instills in you a bit of curiosity :) , I highly recommend that you check out their churches podcast. --> http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com .
Although the night started out really slow, eventually the conversations came, and came on strong. Jimmy was standing outside a club on street waiting for his friends, so I offered him a tract. It was the Worlds Most popular things scratch off tract. He took the tract and told me that he probably wouldn't be able to do it because he was kind of drunk. I was like "ok" and then told him it was a christian tract and asked if he had a christian background. He had a baptist background. He said he was a good person so I led him through the good person test. After the test, when prompted whether he thought God should send him to heaven or hell, he said heaven, and when asked why, he stated that it had been a long time since he had done those things and he had done a lot of good and reformed his ways since then. After reasoning with him, he agreed that a judge wouldn't let a criminal go for those reasons, and agreed that God shouldn't either. At that point he said that he had to go so I quickly summed it all up with the fact that Jesus had died for him, and sacrificed everything, much like somebody walking into a court room after selling everything they owned to pay an undeserving criminal's fine for him. I thanked him for talking to me, and as he left, his facial expressions showed that he was thinking deeply about what we had just talked about.
I started up a conversaton with the guy running the hot dog stand. The Hot dog stand is right at the two main intersections in Deep Ellum, right in front of one of the more popular clubs, so there's always quite a bit of activity in that area. Tonight was actually a slow night for him (probably because of competition from other vendors due to the Arts festival) so I struck up a conversation. His name was Sydney, and he claimed to be a Christian. When he wasn't working there in Deep Ellum, he drove a school bus. and he had 4 grown kids. I asked him if he was satisfied with how his life turned out, and with how his kids turned out. He said a lot of things could have been better, but he couldn't complain. One of his kids was permanently confined to a wheel chair after having his spine shattered in a tree cutting accident, and he certainly wished that was different. I asked him when he became a christian, and he said that he had been a christian all his life, as that was how he was raised. I inquired how his life was different or had been changed due to his faith. He didn't really have a whole lot to say in answer to this question, so I explained how when I was born again and truly repented of my sins during my college years, everything about me changed. I had an entirely new focus and direction, things I used to love I hated, things I used to hate I now loved. After that he appeared slightly more defensive, as he swung the conversation to how there are so many diffferent ways to share one's faith, and he wasn't one to push his beliefs on other people. I did a great deal of reasoning with him and explained that if one of the most loving things that we can do is warn people of the consequences of their sin and the consequences of sinning against a holy and just God and warn them what the word of God says, so they can see the awesomeness of the glorious gospel, and that we shouldn't shrink back if people are offended by the truth.. I mentioned 2 Corinthians 5:11 that "knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." Right around this point, Luke and Spenser showed up at the hot dog stand. Luke started to order a hotdog and a drink, which I thought was odd, because we don't usually get food when we're up there, but then I realized that he was buying it for a guy that he was talking to. Luke gave the guy he was with a the food, then gave some money to a guy who Spenser was talking to and then that guy gave
Luke a transit ticket for the Dallas bus system. The ticket was still good until 3:00am that night. I realized that Luke was buying the ticket to give to the guy he had bought the hotdog for, apparently because the guy didn't have a way of getting home and had asked him for some money to be able to get home. However when Luke attempted to give the guy the ticket (instead of just giving him money), the guy freaked out on him and said that the ticket wouldn't do him any good. The ticket indicated in bold print that it was good until 3:00 AM and the guy Luke had bought it from even tired to reason with the guy Luke was giving to, but the guy was freaking out, acting like we were trying to swindle him or something. At that point it became pretty obvious that something else was motiviating him, and his lashing out in desperation at Luke's act of kindness was likely because he was being motivated by a serious drug craving. He wouldn't take the ticket, and was making such a fuss that the hot dog guy, who was observing this whole thing take place told him to leave. He left, without taking the transit ticket, and we sat there saddened at the whole affair. The guy who Luke had bought the ticket from was really impacted by how Luke responded graciously to such ingratitude expressed toward his act of kidness. We continued to talk to him for quite a while. The Holy spirit had obviously been making an impact on this guy, as he told us about his aunt who was a Christian, who had suffered a lot on his behalf and for others in his family because of her faith. He mentioned during his life his aunt had prayed for him constantly, especially during a period when he was in and out of Jail, and he had seen the tangible results to her prayers. One of the examples he gave was when he was about to make a decision that would have likely resulted in him ending up in Jail, she had prayed that God would do whatever necessary (e.g. break his legs) so that he would be unable to do what he was planning on doing, and he described how he had immediately become very sick and weak, and had been unable to carry out what he had been planning on doing. He was very humble and had alot of genuine questions. He asked us whether we thought if someone who was a Christian and commited suicide could still go to heaven. I told him I didn't know the answer to that question, and that I couldn't come to a verdict and had to remain silent on that question, as only God knew. Then he dropped the bombshell that revealed why he was asking that question. Apparently the aunt who had prayed for him for so long was the only Christian in his family and he described how they had put her through such hell, that she had become so discouraged and despairing that she had ended up taking her own life.
Luke and Spenser continued talking to the guy, but I was distracted by someone who came up to our circle and humbly told me "Thank you guys so much for being out here witnessing and sharing your faith". He looked SO familiar, and after a few seconds I realized that he was a Christian we had talked to about a year ago, whom we had helped out with some money and had given him a ride. I remembered his name, which was Robert. He had a huge bruise under his eye so I asked him where that came from. Apparently he got paid for some work he did the other week and some homeless guys saw him get paid and ended up mugging him and took his money. He asked us to pray for him, which we did, and I willingly gave him all the cash I had in my wallet in order to help him out. He asked me where would be going to church the next day, so I told him, and he asked if I would be willing to come pick him up so that he could visit my church. (It didn't work out the next day, but I got his e-mail address an he got my phone number and e-mail address as well so we might be able to swing it next week. ) A year ago when we talked to him i remember how encouraged I was at his confidence in God, and I felt the same sense of encouragement this time.
Since the four of us were all together now, we decided it would be good to head out because it was getting late. We were walking past a club, and I offered a tract to a guy who was sitting on a bench outside the door. He had obviously been drinking and said mockingly, " why don't you tell me why I need this from you or should take this from you.". I told him I would be glad to, and asked him what his name was. He replied, "that's irrelvant, you don't need to know may name". I told him that my name was Jason, and that I like to know the name of the person I'm talking to but if he didn't want to tell me his name, that was fine. At this point, another guy who was standing there seemed interested in the conversation, and he was like" yeah, why don't you tell us why you think we need this." He was willingly to tell me his name, which was Bryan, so I addressed my next statements to both of them. I mentioned that I had just given them a Christian tract and asked the nameless guy if he thought he was a good person. He said he was, so I started questing him using, of course, the standard of the Ten Commandments. Nameless guy was a little too hiked up on alcohol and beliggerent to have a good conversation so I addressed most of what I was saying to Bryan while nameless guy listened in.
I had a very long conversation with Bryan. Luke and Spenser and Daniel were also in and out of our conversation in the midst of talking to other people who were milling about. Bryan had a Christian upbringing, and knew a lot about the Bible, but kept saying things like "Jesus came to be an example and show us a better way to live" and didn't seem to think sin was a very big deal, and also he had some very strange viewpoints philosophically(that contradict bible believing Christianity) . Although he respected the Bible and used it to talk about Jesus, at the same time he questioned the validity of the Bible. It seemed that he was picking and choosing what he liked and what he didn't like. He was very open to discussion of just about anything though, so we talked at length. One of his major hangups was he couldn't reconcile the justice of people spending an eternity in hell. I reasoned with him that in a system of Justice, the severity of the punishment given is a gauge of how heinous the crime comitted was, and that God is so infinitley holy and good and just, and sin so heinous that hell is the only just punnishment for sin. By this time it was getting really late and we really needed to go, so I told him that I didn't know what was going on in his heart, but that if he knew he wasn't right with God (after I had led him through the ten commandments) , he should do something about it, and that If his eyes and my eyes met on the day of Judgement, I would be free from his blood, for I hadn't ceased to warn him to repent. (See Ezekiel 33:7-9) I concluded by sharing this verse with him and exhorted him that these words from Isaiah 66:2 described the kind of person God would not despise --> "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." We thanked him for talking to us, and he did the same, and then after he gave us all a hug, we left.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Wow. Wow. Wow. What an interesting night. It was so great.
We met at the Macleans as usual, and tonight we had 3 people who haven't gone before. Bob A, his sone Ryne, and Anna, from Bob's church. Bob directs The youth group that I volunter on staff with at SIL, along with a youth group at his church.(Two Youth Groups altogether). We've been planning a a combined missions trip to Jamaica in March, and it was Bob's desire (and mine) that all the kids that will be going on the trip are presented with experiences beforehand that demonstrate that our aim as Christians is to foster a lifestyle of being intentional about sharing our faith and witnessing whether we're in Jamaica or at the grocery store down the the road, to the extent that we might fully learn the truth in the following statement. "One doesn't have to cross the sea to be a missionary, one merely has to see the cross."
For the next several weeks, Bob will join us and with several kids from his church on Friday nights. Tonight he brought his son Ryne, and Anna a girl from his youth group.
I went with Ryne. Things were a little slow going at first, partly because we went down one of the side streets, where there weren't as many people. I talked to one girl who was standing outside a bar/cafe. Her boyfriend was the drummer of the band that was playing inside the Bar at the same time we were speaking. I handed her a tract (World's 10 most popular things) and made some small talk with her. I let her know that it was a Christian Tract and asked her if she had a religious background of any sort. She said she kind of did, but she wasn't real forthcoming as to what, it didn't seem she was too keen about religion. So I asked, " Religion aside, what do YOU think happens when we walk out of this place, what's out there waiting for us after we die? She responded by saying that everyone individually decided what they would experience in the afterlife. So I asked her where exactly she got her information from that caused her to come to that conclusion.Her answer was essentially, "well, from myself and my experiences". What she seemed to be implying was she and everyone else chose how thier afterlife's would be played out. I was going to say at this point that I disagreed (that my belief was that everyone ended up in one of 2 places, and then ask her if she thouhgt I was wrong, of if she would be willing to even say she thought I was wrong (to see where she was on the postmodern scale) , but one of her friends walked up to her and it seemed that Satan pulled in whatever distraction he could to distract her. Since she was distracted and headed back inside, I wished her a happy night, and encouraged her to read a tract, and Ryne and I continued on.
We also came upon a guy who was outside a bar/restaraunt sitting down up against the outside wall of the restaurant facing the street. I handed him a Worlds Ten most popular things tract, and he took it and looked it over breifly and started laughing. I wasn't certain what he was laughing about at the time, later when he was talking on his cellphone to his friend(girlfriend) from his comments to her he was laughing because he had never been handed a scratch off pamphlett before. Admist the laughing, he started looking over some of the questions and attempted to answer them. He kept looking at me when he would answer to see if his answer was correct,and I told him no cheating. We eventually got into discussing whether he viewed himself to be a good person or not. We went through the good person test, and I'm not sure if he was too happy about the results, as he had many objections, objections which I answered. Often when you answer people's objections, they sometimes respond and say that you didn't answer their question, and I usually reply that I actually did answer their question, they just didn't like my answer. This seemed to be the case with this guy. After hitting him up with the law of God, I touched on grace, but he really wasn't ready for it and hadn't been very humbled by the law. He eventually had to go so I emphasized repentance from sins and his accountability to God, and he went on his way.
We also talked to John, who had recently been released from Jail, where he had served a 13 year sentence. When I asked what he had been convicted of, he told us this long story about how somebody had mildly assaulted his mother, and he had confronted the guy who did it. When he confronted the guy, the guy gave him a good punch to the head. John had a gun with him so he used the gun and shot the man in the head at point blank. I could sense in the way that John talked that he thought of himself as largely the victim in this situation, and that he was at least somewhat justified in taking a life. I knew that John needed to see himself in light of the truth of God's law, as he didn't truly see the gravity of what he had done, so I led him through the good person test. As I walked him through the law and made many comparisons between God's justice and civil law, he was convicted and humbled. I shared with him the good news of Grace, that God could pardon him, but first he needed to realize the sinfullness of his own sin, and confess and forsake those sins and put his full faith and trust in Jesus to save him (from death and from his sins) . I shared how God is just and all those who deserve justice (all of humanity) will recieve justice if they forsake and refuse God's gift of grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. John was deeply impacted and humbled by the law. The concept of Jesus taking his deserved punnishment really softened him. Having been through the prison system, John was also pretty familiar with the bible and Christianity, but I don't think the truth had ever made as much sense to his conscience and his reason as it did on this particular night. As we were about to part ways John gave me a big long hug and thanked me so much for sharing with him. He was so impacted by what Jesus had done for him, as we has walking away, he proclaimed to some of the people across the street in a loud voice "Jesus loves you!" Ryne and I were both in awe at the change we saw in him from the beginning of the conversation to the end of the conversation, simply from having the Word of God shared and explained to him. Praise God!
We met at the Macleans as usual, and tonight we had 3 people who haven't gone before. Bob A, his sone Ryne, and Anna, from Bob's church. Bob directs The youth group that I volunter on staff with at SIL, along with a youth group at his church.(Two Youth Groups altogether). We've been planning a a combined missions trip to Jamaica in March, and it was Bob's desire (and mine) that all the kids that will be going on the trip are presented with experiences beforehand that demonstrate that our aim as Christians is to foster a lifestyle of being intentional about sharing our faith and witnessing whether we're in Jamaica or at the grocery store down the the road, to the extent that we might fully learn the truth in the following statement. "One doesn't have to cross the sea to be a missionary, one merely has to see the cross."
For the next several weeks, Bob will join us and with several kids from his church on Friday nights. Tonight he brought his son Ryne, and Anna a girl from his youth group.
I went with Ryne. Things were a little slow going at first, partly because we went down one of the side streets, where there weren't as many people. I talked to one girl who was standing outside a bar/cafe. Her boyfriend was the drummer of the band that was playing inside the Bar at the same time we were speaking. I handed her a tract (World's 10 most popular things) and made some small talk with her. I let her know that it was a Christian Tract and asked her if she had a religious background of any sort. She said she kind of did, but she wasn't real forthcoming as to what, it didn't seem she was too keen about religion. So I asked, " Religion aside, what do YOU think happens when we walk out of this place, what's out there waiting for us after we die? She responded by saying that everyone individually decided what they would experience in the afterlife. So I asked her where exactly she got her information from that caused her to come to that conclusion.Her answer was essentially, "well, from myself and my experiences". What she seemed to be implying was she and everyone else chose how thier afterlife's would be played out. I was going to say at this point that I disagreed (that my belief was that everyone ended up in one of 2 places, and then ask her if she thouhgt I was wrong, of if she would be willing to even say she thought I was wrong (to see where she was on the postmodern scale) , but one of her friends walked up to her and it seemed that Satan pulled in whatever distraction he could to distract her. Since she was distracted and headed back inside, I wished her a happy night, and encouraged her to read a tract, and Ryne and I continued on.
We also came upon a guy who was outside a bar/restaraunt sitting down up against the outside wall of the restaurant facing the street. I handed him a Worlds Ten most popular things tract, and he took it and looked it over breifly and started laughing. I wasn't certain what he was laughing about at the time, later when he was talking on his cellphone to his friend(girlfriend) from his comments to her he was laughing because he had never been handed a scratch off pamphlett before. Admist the laughing, he started looking over some of the questions and attempted to answer them. He kept looking at me when he would answer to see if his answer was correct,and I told him no cheating. We eventually got into discussing whether he viewed himself to be a good person or not. We went through the good person test, and I'm not sure if he was too happy about the results, as he had many objections, objections which I answered. Often when you answer people's objections, they sometimes respond and say that you didn't answer their question, and I usually reply that I actually did answer their question, they just didn't like my answer. This seemed to be the case with this guy. After hitting him up with the law of God, I touched on grace, but he really wasn't ready for it and hadn't been very humbled by the law. He eventually had to go so I emphasized repentance from sins and his accountability to God, and he went on his way.
We also talked to John, who had recently been released from Jail, where he had served a 13 year sentence. When I asked what he had been convicted of, he told us this long story about how somebody had mildly assaulted his mother, and he had confronted the guy who did it. When he confronted the guy, the guy gave him a good punch to the head. John had a gun with him so he used the gun and shot the man in the head at point blank. I could sense in the way that John talked that he thought of himself as largely the victim in this situation, and that he was at least somewhat justified in taking a life. I knew that John needed to see himself in light of the truth of God's law, as he didn't truly see the gravity of what he had done, so I led him through the good person test. As I walked him through the law and made many comparisons between God's justice and civil law, he was convicted and humbled. I shared with him the good news of Grace, that God could pardon him, but first he needed to realize the sinfullness of his own sin, and confess and forsake those sins and put his full faith and trust in Jesus to save him (from death and from his sins) . I shared how God is just and all those who deserve justice (all of humanity) will recieve justice if they forsake and refuse God's gift of grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. John was deeply impacted and humbled by the law. The concept of Jesus taking his deserved punnishment really softened him. Having been through the prison system, John was also pretty familiar with the bible and Christianity, but I don't think the truth had ever made as much sense to his conscience and his reason as it did on this particular night. As we were about to part ways John gave me a big long hug and thanked me so much for sharing with him. He was so impacted by what Jesus had done for him, as we has walking away, he proclaimed to some of the people across the street in a loud voice "Jesus loves you!" Ryne and I were both in awe at the change we saw in him from the beginning of the conversation to the end of the conversation, simply from having the Word of God shared and explained to him. Praise God!
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